Designer on iPad file storage

[Jan Peek]

I had been working an image In AD for iPad for a couple of weeks and i assumed I was done With it  so I closed it. There were a LOT of layers in it  both raster and vector. Then, I was looking at a the png I had exported from It and thought I’d make a few changes to see if it was an improvement. So, longtime Windows  user that I am, I assumed I’d just find the ‘source’ file (am I dating myself here?) when I realized I didn’t know where to look for it. I might mention that this is the first time I followed a design all the way through to the end on iPad without working partly on my desktop machine or going to photoshop to finish up.
 

So my question is: where is the original file and how do I re-open it? In Windows I always know where everything is, the file system is wide open. On iPad due to the great wisdom of St Steven of Cupertino this is not the case. I looked using the little file manager that is all you get on the iPad and all I could find in local storage, iCloud and Google Drive were my  jpg/png exports. Now I CLOSED the file but I didn’t DELETE it, right?  Or did I? I’m glad no $$ Are on the line here but it would be good to know if it’s possible to entrust serious work to AD on the iPad. The iPad Pro (sic) and the Apple Pencil are fun together but are they just cool toys?

[Paul Mudditt]

2 hours ago, Jan Peek said:

I had been working an image In AD for iPad for a couple of weeks and i assumed I was done With it  so I closed it. There were a LOT of layers in it  both raster and vector. Then, I was looking at a the png I had exported from It and thought I’d make a few changes to see if it was an improvement. So, longtime Windows  user that I am, I assumed I’d just find the ‘source’ file (am I dating myself here?) when I realized I didn’t know where to look for it. I might mention that this is the first time I followed a design all the way through to the end on iPad without working partly on my desktop machine or going to photoshop to finish up.
 

So my question is: where is the original file and how do I re-open it? In Windows I always know where everything is, the file system is wide open. On iPad due to the great wisdom of St Steven of Cupertino this is not the case. I looked using the little file manager that is all you get on the iPad and all I could find in local storage, iCloud and Google Drive were my  jpg/png exports. Now I CLOSED the file but I didn’t DELETE it, right?  Or did I? I’m glad no $$ Are on the line here but it would be good to know if it’s possible to entrust serious work to AD on the iPad. The iPad Pro (sic) and the Apple Pencil are fun together but are they just cool toys?

The home screen in Affinity is only a temporary sandbox where your work is automatically saved too. Think of it as an open tab on a web browser that you have just closed. You should never store your work within an App as if the app is ever deleted all that data would be lost. Always save your work outside of the sandbox in preferably an iCloud location or in the On My iPad folder.

[DM1]

2 hours ago, Jan Peek said:

Now I CLOSED the file but I didn’t DELETE it, right?  

Think of it this way. You created a file. The file is currently stored within the app, accessible only by the app. The file icon appears on the project screen. In iOS you need to think of this as a tab for your file. You can only view one tab at a time.
Now you have some option.

1.You can save the file out of the apps sandbox by tapping the hamburger menu (three bars) next to the icon and tapping Save. This will create a real file (a .afdesign or .afphoto) file. The file will be saved to the default save location either on your iPad in in iCloud, in an Affinity folder created by the app for that purpose.

2. You can tap Close, and the 'tab' will close, deleting the file information stored in sandbox.

So, if you Close before Saving, yes your file is gone for good (Deleted). However if you Close AFTER Saving, you can simply open the .afdesign/photo file to get access to your work, so your file in this case was simply Closed.

[Jan Peek]

Thanks for your explanation. So I did delete that file. No big thing I guess since nobody was depending on it..

In most professional applications, the opposite of close is open. Reversible. Kind of unfriendly to delete a lot of work based on a naive user choosing ‘close.

I can’t believe I am the first (or last) newbie to make this mistake. It could be handled better by storing the source file outside the box in cloud storage.. That way the user would have to delete the file explicitly to lose it completely. 

Do you know how to raise this suggestion with the Affinity design team?

[Blende21]

Spoiler: Always save your work before exiting the app.

This is the way all apps in iOS handle files, because it is the way iOS is build. When you start an app, it is placed into its own sandbox, isolated from the rest of the iPhone or iPads processes. It is allocated memory, it can use resources, but it stays in the sandbox. Content is kept in this share. On closing the app, content is usually saved inside of the app, to be available on restart. Closing the file without saving means it will be gone, right away or at the latest when the app is closed. This is iOS by design, not Affinity.

When you save, it is normally saved in a "Tab" under the apps name. If iCloud is activated, this container will be there, or on the local flash drive ("This iPad"). Using the save dialogue, or the files app, you can move things around, and away like to another cloud service or to local storage like a NAS.

So sorry, better get used to the way iOS does it, because this is the lead for all app design(ers).

[Jan Peek]

I hear you. Though iOS has evolved somewhat lately, the original decision by Jobs preventing users access to the file system was OK for a consumer appliance , but really awkward for serious creative work. I love working on my 12.9” IPad Pro with Apple Pencil but the limits imposed by iOS remain an annoyance.

[Blende21]

iOS is evolving - since Apple wants to build it into something for professional use, they need to move ahead. I just wanted to show that it takes 2 for this tango: Apple has to further open the OS, and the app designers have to take advantage of it.

For me, although I love my iPad Pro (10.5), for serious work I switch to my MacBook Pro. iCloud integration makes this easy, especially with apps that write the same file format on both devices.

[Jan Peek]

Yeah it’s frustrating, because iOS is so close to getting it right. I prefer drawing on the iPad Pro 12.9 with the Apple Pencil, but I still finish up stuff on Windows with AD and Photoshop. Overall I feel lucky to have such great tools. Real creative freedom.

[DM1]

On 6/2/2020 at 3:50 AM, Jan Peek said:

Yeah it’s frustrating, because iOS is so close to getting it right

It’s not too bad once you understand how it works, once you hit Save, you have a file.
When you makes edits the sandbox file is updated automatically as you exit the work screen back to the home screen.

You must use Save (either in Home screen hamburger menu or Workscreen Document menu) to permanently save these edits back to the .afdesign/photo file.

You can copy and or move you file to any location. If it’s in iCloud you can close it and reopen to continue working from desktop.

Just remember to use Open from Cloud (accesses all locations, local and network too),  your iPad can now continue to do editing with saving back to original file. Import from Cloud creates a copy of the original file.

[Jan Peek]

So after you do "save a copy’ AD will update the file you created automatically when you exit to home screen.? Just want to confirm that. Once bitten etc.

[Paul Mudditt]

8 hours ago, Jan Peek said:

So after you do "save a copy’ AD will update the file you created automatically when you exit to home screen.? Just want to confirm that. Once bitten etc.

Once you have opened the file from your iCloud location and exited to the affinity home screen your file modifications have not been saved yet, you must still use the hamburger icon and press save or from the documents menu you should have the new option “save”. 

Always press one of these two saves before you close the file from the affinity home screen.

[Jan Peek]

Got it. Thank you.

[DM1]

1 hour ago, Paul Mudditt said:

Always press one of these two saves before you close the file from the affinity home screen.

Paul is correct. For clarity I have edited my previous post to avoid further confusion.

[Jan Peek]

My final thoughts on this topic: iOS uses this “sandbox” approach to file storage, unlike its big brothers, eg Linux, Windows and Mac OS. All of the grownup OS’s  allow the end user (practically) unrestricted access to the  file system. In Windows, for example, if  you want to delete system files, thereby blowing up your system, knock yourself out. You are an admin after all, whether you wanted to be or not. If you don’t save your work, well gee, that’s too bad.

The thinking behind obscuring the inner workings of iOS is (I’m assuming) is that end users need protection from their own ignorance.  I see the sense in that. Most  users are not system guys. It only becomes a problem when you also drill into users that they don’t need to worry about managing and protecting their data. The app ‘takes care of that” for you! I don’t deny responsibility for shooting myself in the foot here.. it’s just that after 30+ years of experience designing  hardware and software I still stepped in the metaphorical dog shit and deleted (‘closed”) my project file, not something I would do intentionally, ever. Memory is cheap, (unlike in the bad old days),  time is not. Would it not be cheap and simple to create a project file in the cloud giving the naive user a fallback in the event of such an accident? Because accidents will always happen and we can all use some protection. (This also raises the issue iOS’s lack of comprehensive system backups, which would also save your bacon in such circumstances. A whole other topic.)

Thanks to everyone who helped walk me through this. Your willingness to help makes it easier being a newbie.

[DM1]

5 hours ago, Jan Peek said:

end users need protection from their own ignorance. 

I think Apples original intention was to protect users from the sort of hacking that other systems are so susceptible to. iOS lacks login accounts so hard to limit things to 'admin' access. As iOS becomes more sophisticated we may hopefully see some changes to levels of access in future iterations.🙂

[Irwin]

On 6/1/2020 at 10:25 AM, Jan Peek said:

Thanks for your explanation. So I did delete that file. No big thing I guess since nobody was depending on it..

In most professional applications, the opposite of close is open. Reversible. Kind of unfriendly to delete a lot of work based on a naive user choosing ‘close.

I can’t believe I am the first (or last) newbie to make this mistake. It could be handled better by storing the source file outside the box in cloud storage.. That way the user would have to delete the file explicitly to lose it completely. 

Do you know how to raise this suggestion with the Affinity design team?

Hi, I lost a file today like this too, exactly as Jan did. I had opened it, worked on it, and then used the normal "Save" for a few weeks. Today, I made some modifications I didn't want to keep while, of all things, showing a friend how cool Affinity Designer was. I "closed" it thinking I could "reopen" the file. Instead, the "sandbox file" is now deleted.

To me, this kind of instantaneous data loss is not acceptable without requiring user confirmation. Some easy ways to prevent this data loss would be:

• Instead of "Close", name the menu option "Delete". That is essentially what you're doing - you're deleting the "sandbox file".
• If you select the "Close" option, ask the user to confirm the action.
• If you select the "Close" option, suggest that the user save a copy to Files on the iPad, or to iCloud Drive so that it can be reopened later.

If Apple puts in place constraints where you can't save, then it's up to the developers at Serif to work within those constraints and help educate users on how to avoid data loss. A simple prompt is more than enough.

More sophisticated versions would be to have Affinity Designer on iPad save regular snapshots of the file in the sandbox every x minutes that can be reopened even if closed.

I've had all kinds of confusion with how Affinity Designer handles files. I've made changes to files and then switched apps, only to lose my recent edits (presumably because the app doesn't appear to save if it closes automatically). I've loaded up files in memory without realizing that they weren't in persistent storage like iCloud. This is the latest in a string of frustrating data losses.

Please see if you can do something about this in a future update.

[Ewuszka]

Hey guys,

I also have the problem with saving files. Offloading app doesn’t help with cleaning storage and making free space in my iPad memory while I’m working on multiple illustrations. Please tell me, if I will delete the App Affinity Designer from my iPad completely will I have to purchase it again in App Store? 

[Jan Peek]

Something else to watch out for:

AD on my iPad Pro was, after a lot of use,  taking up 60 Gb of memory. No way to tell what it was using this for. There is a no way to reclaim this memory except to uninstall/reinstall the app. This works, but watch out!

Any customization done is lost in the process. All of the new brushes I had imported had to be re-installed, so make sure any assets or add-ons you need are saved in the cloud or on a desktop machine. The really annoying side effect is that in uninstalling the app, the Affinity Designer folder in “On My IPad” is deleted. I lost several source files this way. No way to get them back. So again, be sure all your files are backed up externally before you do this. 
 

iOS will not be a mature OS until the administrator (in practice the end user) has access to all the files used by the app. Professional users need to own and manage ALL of their data.